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t^KVENTU l'JtK.<ItVTr.l{IAN (lltHCII, I'llILADKLl'lIIA. 

AS OIlUilNAl.LY DKSlU.NtD. 



AFRICA'S REDEMPTION. 



A DISCOURSE ON 



AFRICAN COLONIZATION 



IN ITS MISSIONARY ASPECTS, 
AND IN ITS RELATION TO SLAVERY AND ABOLITION. 



PREACHED ON SABBATH MOKNING, JULY 4tH, 1852, IN THE SEVENTH PRES- 
BYTERIAN CHURCH, PENN SQUARE, PHILADELPHIA. 



WILLIAM HENRY RUFFNER, 

PASTOR. 



Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God. — Psalm Ixviii. 3L 



PHILADELPHIA : 

WILLIAM S. MARTIEN. 
Lsr)2. 



/■ 



s-^,- 






^ 



>4. 
3 



Eev. William H. Ecffsek. 



PUILADKLI'IIIA, July 5t/l, 1852. 



Dear Sir : — The undersigned, members of jour church and congregation, having listened 
■with great satisfaction and interest to the discourse preaclied by j-ou on the morning of 
Sabbath the 4th inst. and believing that the cause which it advocates will bo promoted by 
its being more largely disseminated, we would respectfully ask a cojiy for publication. 

We are, Dear Sir, 

Very respectfully and truly your.<, &c. 

F. A. BOKEE, 

George Sharswood, 
Thomas Reath, 
Alfred Martien, 
E. Warwick, 
George N. Eckert, 
Samuel A. Lewis, 
Thomas Bellas, 
Robert Keltox, 
E. M. Patterson', 
Isaac II. Whtie, 



James Otterson, Jr. 
Alexander Boyd, 
D. Watt, 
James Bellas, 
Jos. W. Cowan, 
IIooD Simpson, 
S. Augustus Mitchell, 
John Gibson, 
William JIcFadden, 
Charles H. Graff, 
John AVilson. 



Philadelphia, October 4, 1852. 
Gentlemen : — Jly long delay in rendering a formal reply to your communication of July 
5th, has not been the result of a low appreciation of what is due to you personally, or to 
your kind and complimentary request. It has been occasioned, first by the undecided state 
of my mind as to allowing the discourse to be published, and then by a number of circum- 
stances personal to myself, which prevented my preparing a legible copy for the printer. 

Thanking you for your attention and your patience, I place the manuscript at your dis- 
posal, with the hope thai, under the Divine blessing, some good may accrue to a noble 
cause from its publication. 
With sentiments of high regard for each one of you, 

I am, gentlemen, your sincere friend and pastor, 

WILLIAM HENRY RUFFXER. 
To Messrs. F. A. Bokee, 

George Sharswood, 
Thomas Reath, 
James Otterson, 
Alexander Born, 
D. Watt, and others. 



AFRICA'S REDEMPTION. 



Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God.— Psiilin Ixviii. SI. 

Many persons now live who well remember the con- 
test, in England, concerning the duty of attempt- 
ing the work of evangelizing the world. But since 
the day when John Foster laid his heavy hand on 
Sydney Smith, the question has been virtually set- 
tled. Christianity was then born into a higher, 
purer, freer mode of existence than the cold obstruc- 
tion in which it lay before. English piety then de- 
monstrated that English power had a nobler mission 
to heathen nations than that of plunder, war, and 
oppression. American Christianity, enjoying a free- 
dom unknown since the days of Constantine, not 
only admits her whole duty to the heathen world, 
but is dealing with the largest ideas, and probably, 
in the evolution of God's Providence, is destined to 
achieve the mightiest results in the restoration of 
ruined man, of all the nations of Christendom. The 
judgment, conscience, and affections of Christian 
people in our land are fairly won in favour of uni- 
versal missions. They need only to be stimulated 
and guided. 



A !•• R I C A ' S RED E M P Tl N. 



Of all foreign missionary fields, there is no one so 
calculated to stir the American heart as Africa. 
Africa is at the lowest degree in the scale of civiliza- 
tion, and America is fast rising to the highest: a 
vast ocean rolls between them; they know but lit- 
tle of each other, have less present intercommuni- 
cation than most other nations, yet how intimate, 
how wonderful the conjunction between these ex- 
tremes of civilization! That negro-slavery is an 
anomaly in American civilization, can hardly be 
denied, but that it is an anomaly in the world's pro- 
gress, no considerate mind will affirm. Potiphar 
bought Joseph of the Ishmaelites and made him his 
slave, but there was then instituted a relation, inti- 
mate and interesting, and pregnant with vast and 
beneficent results. American Christians are com- 
pelled to be cautious in speaking on this theme, and 
have directed their efforts more to some other por- 
tion of heathendom than to Africa; but beneath this 
external reserve there is a tender and lively interest 
in all that pertains to the negro and the negro's 
fatherland, which will gradually work itself out into 
the grandest manifestations. 

It is not my intention to speak of the whole of 
the continent of Africa, but only of that portion 
which lies south of the Great Desert. The northern 
division of the continent, inhabited by Moors, and 
fronting on the Mediterranean Sea, has had a very 
dififerent history, and will have a very different fu- 
ture, from the central and southern divisions. The 
central and western region is by far the most im- 



A F II I f A ' S ]{ K L) K M p T I O N. 



portant part of the country, is the one with which 
we as a nation have had and will have most to do, 
and which will occupy our attention chiefly on this 
occasion. It now contains a vast population, proba- 
bly four times as great as the United States; but its 
capabilities are so unbounded that it may sustain a 
very much larger number of inhabitants. Its soil is 
not surpassed, if equalled, in the world. Its immense 
vegetation grows unchecked throughout the year. 
The tropical fruits which are brought to us as luxu- 
ries, and many, which cannot be transported, there 
abound in the utmost profusion. How would we be 
charmed to stand amongr its grroves of orang-e, olive, 
banana and palm. How delighted to behold, hang- 
ing around us in the most lavish abundance, the 
lemon, pine-apple, mango, plantain, lime, and pome- 
granate. How impressed to walk among her gigantic 
forest-trees, interlaced with vines, and sheltering the 
mightiest animals that tread the earth. There are 
found dye-woods, ship-timber, and timber for cabi- 
net and common building purposes in great variety, 
and of great excellence. Many of our condiments 
and articles belonging to our Materia Medica are now 
brought from there, and may be procured in any 
quantity. Almost all the productions comprised in 
the departments of horticulture, farming, and plant- 
ing, grow there with astonishing exuberance. The 
face of the country is diversified, much of it being 
hilly and mountainous. It is well watered, abounds 
in valuable minerals, including gold and iron, has 
no epidemic diseases, and not a great many of any 



g AFRICA'S REDEMPTION. 

kind, and according to Dr. Lugenbeel, it has a 
pleasant climate, and one which is healthy to the 
African race. Its waters, too, afford an abundance 
of fish. In a word, it contains the elements of com- 
fort and wealth in boundless profusion. 

Excepting a small proportion of Arabs, who 
crossed the Great Desert during the middle ages and 
settled among them, this region is inhabited by the 
pure negro race. This race, although very de- 
graded, probably possesses much higher capabilities 
than are usually ascribed to it. It is, perhaps, inju- 
dicious in the friends of the negro, to contend for 
an intellectual equality between the white and black 
races. Diversities in this particular are common 
over the whole earth among nations of the same 
race, as well as among those of different races. No 
doubt the Africans are nearly equal to the Chinese, 
and superior to some branches of the races consid- 
ered superior to theirs, as for example the twenty- 
five millions of Russian serfs. But the mind of man 
is modified by circumstances, as well as his body. 
And the intellect of the negro has suffered from the 
protracted disadvantages under which he has la- 
boured. No one, however, can assign any limit to 
the improvement which may be effected under suita- 
ble culture; and there can be no reasonable doubt 
that the negro has abundant capacity for all the ordi- 
nary aff'airs of human life, including self-government, 
and may attain to as high a degree of civilization as 
any other race. There are indeed some features in 
the negro character of peculiar interest. Of all 



AFRICA'S REDEMPTION. (j 

others he is the kindest, brightest, gayest, and most 
inclined to rehgion. He has eloquence, grace, and 
wit, a gorgeous fancy and a most touching pathos. 
As the sun declines in Africa, the stupid Dutch boor 
of the south lights his pipe and sits down in moody 
silence; the saturnine Moor of the north whets his 
knife and thirsts for blood ; whilst the negro leaps, 
and sings, and dances, and plays upon his musical 
instrument. The whole country is a scene of the 
most joyous merriment. Nor are the Africans des- 
titute of regular governments. They have rulers, 
law, and subordination; and, considering the isola- 
tion which has characterized their history, we see 
some favourable features in their condition, calcu- 
lated to surprise us. 

But still their moral degradation is very great. 
They are suffering under the usual woes attendant 
upon an absence of correct religious knowledge. 
Mr. Moffatt thinks he found some tribes in southern 
Africa, who had no idea of a Supreme Being, or in- 
deed of any supernatural power whatever. But this 
is not wholly true of the natives of central and west- 
ern Africa. Some of them have been converted by 
the Moors to the Mohammedan faith. But the 
mass of them are governed by an abject supersti- 
tion, which we may call Devil-worship. To their 
god, who resembles our idea of Satan, they fre- 
quently offer human sacrifices, especially on occa- 
sions like the ratification of a treaty, or the death of 
a king. It is recorded that upon the occasion of 
the death of one of the kind's of the Aikims, his 
2 



;10 AFRICA'S REDEMPTION. 

people sacrificed his prime minister, three hundred 
and thirty-six of his wives, and upwards of a thou- 
sand of his slaves. The symbol of their divinity 
they always wear about the neck, in the form of a 
bit of wood, horn, or other common material. They 
call it the fetiche, and place the utmost reliance on 
its power to protect them from all harm. 

Cannibalism is not uncommon. There is one 
tribe widely scattered over the country, whose food 
is said to be human flesh, and human bodies are 
hung up for sale in their shambles. Their prison- 
ers of war are fattened, killed, and eaten, or sold to 
the butchers. 

But the grand source of Africa's woes, is that 
inhuman traffic in her own people, which the civil- 
ized world unite in denouncing, and which several 
nations, the United States included, have united in 
endeavouring to suppress. This is the cause of the 
fearful state of society which there exists. This is 
the secret of their incessant wars. The Africans, in 
their wars, are not stimulated by revenge, like our 
Indians, nor hurried by the impulse of wanton 
cruelty, like the Moors of the desert; nor are they 
prompted by ambition and a desire to extend their 
dominions, like many more civilized nations; "but 
they go out to battle in order to steal and to sell one 
another, and they exult in victory in proportion to 
the trophies of human victims." I cannot under- 
take here to depict the horrors attendant upon this 
accursed traffic. It is not merely the terrific mid- 
night assault, the violent seizure, and the murder of 



AFRICA'S REDEMPTION. J^ 

the useless; not merely the pain of endless separa- 
tion between the captive and all he holds dear; not 
merely the miseries of the passage across, and the 
perpetual servitude brought upon him and his pos- 
terity, but it is all these evils combined, and aggra- 
vated by circumstances, heart-rending beyond de- 
scription. In spite of all the vigilance of the armed 
squadrons watching the coast, it was calculated, a 
few years ago, that near half a million of Africans 
were annually transported from Africa to Brazil and 
Cuba, chiefly, and sold as slaves; and it is an error 
to suppose that this trade has been suppressed. 

In estimating our duty to Africa, a large item 
in the calculation should be the fact that Chris- 
tian nations are responsible for this wretched state 
of things. The Governments now indeed declare 
the slave-trade to be piracy, but the time was 
when none frowned upon it, and the most of 
them encouraged it. What language can express 
the stringency of that obligation which rests upon 
those nations, not only to suppress the traffic at 
every needed cost, but to indemnify Africa for 
the awful evils and incalculable wrongs they have 
inflicted upon her ! The sending of vessels to 
guard the coast may be considered an admission 
of this obligation. But the small results which 
have followed this effort ought to show the govern- 
ments, who send these vessels, that they arc wrong- 
ly applying their means. The profits to the slavers 
are so enormous, that they can afford to lose two- 
thirds of their vessels, and still derive a handsome 



12 A F R I C A ' S R E D E M P T I O N . 

profit, and the vast extent of sea-coast, east as well 
as west, affords them great facilities for escaping. 
The African people must be changed before this 
trade can be annihilated. Had the same money 
which has been required to sustain these costly 
squadrons, been expended in purchasing territory 
along the coast, and in settling it with Christian- 
ized negroes, far more would have been accom- 
plished already, and the foundation been laid for 
its final extermination, so far as the influence of 
such colonies could be made to extend. 

We speak confidently upon this subject, because 
the history and present condition of Liberia have 
demonstrated the superiority of Christian coloni- 
zation over all other modes of suppressing this 
trade. The territory purchased by the Liberians, 
was the theatre of probably the most active scenes 
such as have been described. They own over 
four hundred miles of coast, with average depth 
of thirty miles, and from this region and much of 
the adjacent territory, the slave-trade has been 
w^holly banished ; and the very tribes which were 
once foremost in the business, have been trans- 
formed into peaceful subjects of law, and indus- 
trious followers of legitimate pursuits. The natives 
were not compelled to fly before the colonists like 
our Indians, but were allowed to remain, and be- 
come partial citizens of the Republic. It is sup- 
posed that there are now about one hundred 
thousand natives within its limits, and that two 
hundred thousand more have entered into covenant 



AFRICA'S REDEMPTION. -to 

with the authorities of Liberia to abandon the slave- 
trade for ever. In many ways these people are 
coming under the influence of the true rehgion, are 
learning the arts of civilized life, and having their 
attention directed to the abundant sources of wealth, 
which exist around them in the vegetable and mine- 
ral products of the country. 

A great encouragement to missionary effort among 
these people is found in the absence of all organized 
system in their religion. The world does n'^ot pre- 
sent another instance of a people so free from fixed 
religious ideas and practices. Their few incoherent 
superstitious and idolatrous practices have little that 
is defined or formidable, compared with the magnifi- 
cent system of the Chinese theology, supported by 
the prestige of antiquity and venerated names, and 
interwoven through the texture of an elaborately 
constructed empire. Nor is it to be compared with 
the subtle and ingenious system of the Hindus, per- 
petuated and rendered imposing by its philosophic 
mien, its voluminous commentaries, its cunnin^ and 
numerous priesthood, and the barbaric splendour of 
its public ceremonies. Nor has it any Grand Lama, 
any Prophet of God, any Incas, any altars, any tem- 
ples, any sacred books, any oracles, any demigods, 
any nymphs or naiads, any system of caste, or, 
indeed, (with the few exceptions mentioned) any 
associations or prepossessions, any old authoritative 
errors or deep-rooted prejudices, which would oppose 
the formidable barriers so commonly frowning upon 
and discouraging the Christian missionary in other 



14 AFRICA'S REDEMPTION. 

heathen countries. Let the missionary dissolve (as 
he may easily do) the charm attached to the fetiche, 
and the poor African has no other resource. He is 
then ready for a change. Many of them have im- 
bibed the vagaries of Mohammed, and can we doubt 
the easy triumph of Christianity? 

In discussing methods of propagating Christianity 
among heathen people, the question is sometimes 
agitated, whether the best mode is not always to 
establish in their midst Christian communities, 
where would be exhibited the practical influences 
of Christianity in promoting man's well-being, for 
the life which now is, as well as that which is to 
come. The Moravians have usually pursued this 
system, and with signal success. It is very certain 
that the same system is not equally appropriate for 
all countries. The ordinary system will not do for 
the part of Africa under consideration. This asser- 
tion is verified by history, and (as it seems to me) 
by common sense. Numerous and energetic efforts 
have been made within the last three hundred years, 
by both Protestants and Roman Catholics, to intro- 
duce the gospel into this region. But the same sad 
and brief history has characterized them all. They 
were but a series of disasters and deaths. The bones 
of devoted missionaries are strewed alonof the coast 
from the Senegal to the Bight of Benin. Up to the 
date of Colonization all such efforts failed, and left no 
vestige behind. The people regarded the white mis- 
sionaries as the Aztecs did the Spaniards M'ho inva- 
ded their country, as a different race of beings, with 



AFRICA'S REDEMPTION. ic 

whom they could have nothing in common ; and soon 
the missionaries sunk under the influence of the ch- 
mate, and their labours perished with them. Al- 
though, since the settlement of Liberia, the climate 
seems less malignant in its effects upon the white 
man, yet nothing seems more clearly indicated by 
Providence than that Africa is not to be Christian- 
ized by the direct labours of the white race. Even 
were there no colonization of coloured people in 
the country, it would be better to employ coloured 
missionaries than white ones. Rev. Mr. Pinney 
has shown, by a calculation made several years ago, 
that the average missionary life of white mission- 
aries in Africa has been less than two and a half 
years, whilst that of coloured missionaries, even 
from this country, has been ten or twelve times as 
long. Of late, however, the fatality among the 
white missionaries has not been so great. 

I fully sympathize with the profound impression 
which is constantly taking a wider and deeper hold 
upon the American mind, and is extending among 
the intelligent people of Great Britain, that the 
mighty and glorious work of regenerating this con- 
tinent, has, in the scheme of God's providence, been 
assigned to her own long exiled sons, who are to 
return, not like the prodigal son, weary, worn, and 
wretched, but like Jacob coming out from Padan- 
Aram, all laden with riches and full of hope. 
Surely there can be no means so well adapted to 
the end as this. When the intelligent American 
born negro touches African soil, he must feel some- 



15 AFRICA'S REDEMPTION. 

what as Nehemiah did when returning from cap' 
tivity to Jerusalem; and hke the Roman of old, he 
must feel ready to fall upon his face and kiss his 
mother earth; and in meeting his native brother, he 
can but acknowledge, with a mournful tenderness, 
the tie which binds them together. They clasp 
their hands, eye meets eye, heart responds to heart. 
One in colour, one in taste, one in temperament, one 
in origin, now one in residence, one in interest, must 
they not be one in faith and hope, and through eter- 
nity, one and inseparable. Already they dwell to- 
gether in love, and the work of deliverance is 
rapidly progressing. The Hottentot retires before 
the white colonist of the south, the Moor was driven 
out by the Spaniard, the aborigines of America 
could not be induced to remain with the whites, but 
the native of Africa dwells side by side with the 
Liberian, lives in his family, imbibes his habits and 
opinions, submits to his laws, sits down with him in 
the house of God, and in every way shows that he 
feels the Liberian to be his brother. The demon- 
stration is already complete. Whilst every effort to 
introduce Christianity by the ordinary system has 
failed, every effort to introduce it by negro coloniza- 
tion has succeeded. Every such colony still exists, 
and wherever its jurisdiction extends, has banished 
piracy and the slave-trade, established constitutional 
civil government, trial by jury, and the reign of 
law, introduced the usage and comforts of civilized 
life, and imparted them to many of the nations, 
established schools, built houses of worship, gath- 



A F R I C A' S R E D E M P T I O N. JJ 

ered churches, and maintained the })reachinf^ of the 
Gospel, protected missionaries and seen native con- 
verts received into Christian communion. Not a 
colony has been attempted without leadinq- to these 
results. Take the three colonies of Cape Pal mas, 
(the Maryland colony) Liberia proper, and Sierra 
Leone, the British colony, (formed of slaves who 
fled to the British during our Revolutionary war) 
and within their bounds you find considerably up- 
wards of 100 missionaries and assistant missionaries, 
many of them of African descent, and some of them 
native Africans, now successfully labouring in the 
reo-eneratiou of Africa: and we see as the true fruit 
of their labours something like 15,000 regular com- 
municants in Christian churches, a much larger 
number regular attendants upon the preaching of 
the Gospel, and many tens of thousands of natives 
perfectly accessible to Christian influences. All 
this has been done since the settlement of Sierra 
Leone in 1787, and most of it since the settlement 
of Liberia, in 1822. The results of the other sys- 
tem after a trial of more than 300 years, are cer- 
tainly very small, although we have not the exact 
statistics. Whatever general views we have as to 
the best mode of conducting Christian missions, and 
whatever view we may take of colonization in its 
other aspects, one practical conclusion of incalcula- 
ble value has undoubtedly been reached, viz. that 
the establishment and sustenance of colonies of 
Christian negroes in the country is the best, if not 
the only practicable mode of advancing the civili- 
3 



Ig AFRICA'S RET) P: MPT 1 ON. 

zation and Christianization of Africa. In fact, some- 
thing akin to this is the ultimate hope of all for- 
eign missions. It is not expected that mission- 
aries will ever directly Christianize any country. 
Their aim is to form Christian nuclei in the shape 
of little native communities, whose influence will he 
the means of enlightening and converting the rest. 
African colonization differs from this in only one 
respect, which gives a great advantage. Instead of 
awaiting the slow process of teaching and elevating 
a portion of the savage nations, in order that they 
may become teachers and civilizers of others, coloni- 
zation begins where the missionary leaves off, with a 
Christianized community, not strictly of natives, but 
of people of the same race, who will naturally exert 
as potent and favourable an influence on their 
African brethren as if they were all born on the soil. 
There are some pregnant indications in recent evo- 
lutions of the providence of God, which seem to in- 
dicate that the efficacious principle of colonization 
is to be largely applied in the world's conversion. 
California and Australia, as well as Liberia, are just 
now fields in which these remarkable indications are 
displayed. Had the discoveries of gold in these 
countries been made in the last century, no such 
sensations could have agitated the world as is now 
agitatino^ it. Nations were then too isolated, and 
ignorant of each other. No such commingling of 
races and nations could then have taken place as we 
now behold in the gold regions ; and more than this, 
the countries containing the hidden treasure were 



AFRICA'SREDEMPTION. 19 

not then in possession of truly Christian govern- 
ments. These two great centres of attraction lying 
on opposite sides of the globe, are drawing together 
great numbers of people from a variety of lands, 
civilized and uncivilized, where they are destined to 
come under Christian influences. The design of 
Providence is not yet sufficiently manifest, for us to 
say how far these remarkable movements are des- 
tined to contribute to the ends under consideration, 
but that they will be powerfully effective, none can 
doubt; and mark you, so far as they are effective, 
it 7vill he by the return of Christianized Pagans to 
their own countries. 

These discoveries of hid treasures are not yet 
ended. I feel prepared to hazard the opinion that 
the progress of African colonization is to be vastly 
accelerated by discoveries which shall appeal to 
the same acquisitive passion which is so rapidly 
peopling California and Australia. It was meet 
that the first founders of the Liberian nation should 
be men who were actuated by nobler motives 
than those appealing to their cupidity. Like the 
Puritans of New England, the pioneers of Liberian 
greatness were men of high principle, w^ho sought a 
free home ; and like the Puritans, they laid the foun- 
dations of their government in solid strength. But 
the high motives which influenced the majority of 
the Liberian settlers are not such as influence the 
majority of men. Now that the community is esta- 
blished in all its essential elements of prosperity, it 
is prepared to receive those who can be attracted 



20 AF RICA'S REDEMPTION. 

only by inducements inferior to those which at- 
tracted the original settlers. Multitudes will be 
moved by the love of money, who will not be moved 
by the desire for freedom, social equality, and high 
moral elevation. Liberia now appeals to the latter 
motive, and to some extent to the former. Cer- 
tainly the offerings of fortune are now much more 
promising to the negro in Liberia, than in any other 
portion of the world ; and already have we had inti- 
mations that somewhere within that region there are 
to be laid open sources of wealth as tempting as 
those of California. Undoubtedly vast deposits of 
gold lie imbedded in Western Africa; and when ex- 
posed, they will be (in a manner) exclusively for the 
negro. Even Anglo-Saxon enterprise must suc- 
cumb before the pestilential air of Africa. What 
use God means to make of the orold of Africa in the 
furtherance of his cause on earth, no man knoweth ; 
but supposing the news come to America, that on 
the Western coast of Africa mines of gold, richer 
than those of California, have been discovered, how 
quickly would be dissipated the fierce opposition of 
the masses of our free coloured people to African 
colonization. Thousands who are incapable of being 
influenced by higher motives, would hasten to the 
diggings as fast as sails and steam could carry them; 
and this inlluence would be permanent. Suddenly 
a great Christian nation of coloured people would 
appear on the coast, and out of this, perhaps venial 
cupidity, would grow the most blessed results to 
that benighted continent. Let those who are skep- 



AFRICA'S REDEMPTION. £1 

tical as to the practicability of ever removing large 
numbers of the coloured population from this country 
to Africa, consider, in the light of European immi- 
gration to the United States, and the mighty rush of 
people to Australia and California, how easily simi- 
lar motives would empty this land of the free black 
population. And wherever the negro goes from 
America, he will be accompanied, in some form or 
other, by a pure Christianity, and to a great extent 
by its resulting civilization. As long as America 
remains enlightened and civilized, she will not per- 
mit the negro colonies, who have gone out from her 
bosom, to sink far below the level of her own attain- 
ments. I have great faith in the self-sustaining 
powers of the improved negro race, but however 
faithless one may be as to this point, who can sup- 
pose the people of the United States to be so recreant 
to the peculiar relations they sustain to the race, as 
ever to withdraw their fostering care, or even to fail 
in affording the most liberal encouragement to all 
communities formed on the coast of Africa by ne- 
groes who have gone out from this country ; and who 
could imagine anything but the most active possible 
co-operation of the Christian public, in elevating and 
saving the whole native population ! We are the 
providentially designated guardians of Africa; and 
as soon might we expect the conscientious parent to 
see ignorance, degradation, and ruin fasten upon his 
son without using every effort to save him, as to see 
America allow the decadence of Liberia, as long as 
it was possible to save her. However strangely the 



22 AFRICA'S REDEMPTION. 

words of Pitt may have sounded in the British Par- 
liament, forty years ago, they now seem only the 
language of obvious truth. " We may live, (said he) 
to behold the natives of Africa enoraored in the calm 
occupations of industry, and the pursuits of just and 
legitimate commerce. We may behold the beams of 
science and philosophy breaking in upon that land, 
which in some happy period, at still later times, may 
blaze with their full lustre, and joining their influ- 
ence to that of pure religion, may illuminate and in- 
vigorate the most distant extremities of that vast 
continent." 

Let us now revert to the influence of Liberia on 
the native Africans, as exhibiting the mode in which 
Christian settlements ot coloured people are calcu- 
lated to accomplish the results of which I have been 
speaking. 

The natives, who are interspersed among the 
Liberians, and who come in great numbers from 
the interior, for the purposes of trade, have before 
their eyes a small, but prosperous and completely 
organized nation, composed of people of their own 
colour. They see the land under culture and yield- 
ing, with an exuberance such as they have never 
seen, a great variety of valuable products. Well 
ordered farms, producing rice, corn, sugar-cane, cas- 
sada, cotton, sweet potatoes, coffee, &c. meet their 
eyes in many parts of the country. They see 
twenty towns composed of well built houses, mostly 
of stone, brick, and frame, often painted and hand- 
somely furnished. They see steam mills on their 



A F R 1 C A' S R E D E M P T I(J N. 23 

rivers, and ships in their harbours, some of them 
built by the Liberians. Many striking attractions 
are presented in Monrovia, the capital — a town 
having twelve hundred inhabitants, regular streets, 
excellent dwellings, large and costly public build- 
ings, including churches, a fort, and a light-house, a 
harbour rarely empty of vessels, an armed and or- 
ganized militia, mechanical trades, stores filled with 
manufactures of different kinds, and many other 
things, which, however common in civilized coun- 
tries, are strange and wonderful to the natives of 
Africa. Doubtless many of them, looking upon 
Monrovia for the first time, have felt like exclaiming 
as the African prince Balla did, when he came in 
sight of the city of Baltimore, "Man no make all dis. 
God make him." As their observations continue, 
they see the people living in peace, order, happi- 
ness, and prosperity, under a republican form of 
government. They see crime punished, industry 
rewarded, property and life protected, education and 
religion prevailing, and altogether an air of comfort 
and improvement, and a tone of social and moral 
life, such as they have never dreamed of, much less 
witnessed, among people of their own race. 

Beholding all this, and mingling freely with, the 
Liberians, we can easily imagine the impression 
which w^ould be made upon a shrewd, inquisitive, 
imitative people like the Africans. And on exami- 
nation, we find that the results on the natives have 
been fully as great as the most sanguine friends of 
the cause anticipated. From the first settlement of 



24 AFRICA'S REDEMPTION. 

the country the impression made upon the native 
mind, has been decided. Prince Balla was a special 
envoy, sent by a native king to make observations 
in America. Tlie proposition made to him by the 
king, is reported in these words : " Balla, 'spose you 
go to 'merica. You got my eyes, you got ni}^ mout, 
you got my ears. You see, you 'peak, you hear for 
me. What you see, I see : what you 'peak, I 'peak : 
what you hear, I hear. Den if all these things we 
hear be true, we all be 'mericans, have ^7nerica book, 
be good like demy 

Liberia is exerting upon Africa an influence 
somewhat similar to that exerted by this country 
on Europe, yet much greater in proportion; and 
vast good is done by special missionary effort. 
There are a large number of native children in the 
schools, where they commonly evince quickness of 
mind and a desire to learn. Already a large num- 
ber of natives have learned to speak the English 
language, are regular attendants upon church, and 
many of them are hopeful converts to the Christian 
religion. The rights of citizenship are extended to 
all native Africans residing within the limits of the 
Republic, as soon as they manifest sufficient interest 
and intelligence; and already several of them are jus- 
tices of the peace. And it is a very interesting fact, 
that the entire Baptist mission is under the exclu- 
sive direction of native converts. There are always 
native boys anxious to be taken into Liberian fami- 
lies as servants, in order that they may have an op- 
portunity of acquiring an English education. A 



A FRIC A 'S RE D EMPTION. 25 

number of African kings have sent their sons from 
several hundred miles in the interior to be placed in 
the families of the colonists. These return to their 
homes imbued with new and noble ideas of life and 
religion. And the interchange of commodities is a 
powerful incidental means of enlightenment; and 
these effects will continue to multiply in an increas- 
ing ratio. President Roberts states, that in a tour 
which he made some years ago, extending about 
three hundred miles inland, he found manifest traces 
of Liberian influence extending through the entire 
distance. There were persons in every place where 
he stopped who could speak the English language. 
The chiefs of the tribes, through which he passed, 
evinced the utmost eagerness to have schools estab- 
lished among them, offering to erect buildings and 
support institutions, where their children might be 
taught the arts of civilization and the truths of the 
Christian religion. Some of the native settlements 
in Liberia, composed of re-captured slaves from the 
slave ships, have been wonderfully assimilated to 
those of the citizens; and in various seasons of revi- 
val, large numbers of natives have been subjects of 
grace. I am satisfied, after pretty extensive reading 
upon the subject, that such an eagerness to learn, 
and such a sincere readiness to embrace Christian- 
ity, has not been evinced by any other heathen peo- 
ple since the era of modern missions. It is amazino- 
that the Christian world has been so feebly impressed 
by the remarkable reception which Christianity has 
met with in Western Africa. Consider the stolid 
4 



2g AFRICA'S REDEMPTION. 

indifference of the American Indians, the supercili- 
ous contempt of the Chinese, the firm bigotry of the 
people of India and Hindoostan, the bloody rage of 
the South Sea Islanders, and the various other forais 
of opposition met with in most other portions of the 
heathen world, and contrast them with the eager, 
o-rateful, beseeching^ attitude of the Africans, and 
you cannot fail to receive the impression that there 
the Gospel of Christ is destined to achieve its speed- 
iest and most remarkable triumphs. It would in- 
deed seem that the Spirit of God had rode on the 
crest of the wave of immigration, and had swept 
away before the advancing tide every barrier of op- 
position which sin had erected against the truth of 
the Son of God. If American Christians heed not 
these wonderful beckonings of Providence, if they 
sustain not this Christian enterprise with a vigour 
and liberality corresponding to this crying demand 
for the Gospel, surely the curse of Meroz will rest 
upon their souls. Brethren, brethren, from the dark 
shades of Africa, ten thousand brother voices come 
to our ears in sad and sorrowing tones, wailing out 
their griefs, and praying us for light and life, 
through Jesus Christ. Let the pathetic sound thrill 
and melt our hearts ; and soon let the breezes which 
sweep from the sea through her scented groves bear 
our gladdening response. It is God's Spirit that 
has aroused them to a sense of their woes, and 
turned their hearts unto the Saviour of all men. He 
has answered almost before we called. Let the 
Christians of this land come up to the help of the 



AFRICA'S REDEMPTION. 27 

Lord, and soon those mango groves will resound 
with hyn:ms to Christ, soon the light of life flashing 
free throughout that land will wake into life a multi- 
tude of Christian nations: and the descendinsr sun 
of Africa will look, not upon senseless mirth and 
revelry, but upon the ascending incense of thankful 
worship, and upon all the tokens of a happy, thriv- 
ing, and elevated population. 

It should not be supposed, that in these remarks 
I am pretending to present all the varied and valu- 
able aspects of African Colonization. Its advanta- 
ges in furnishing the only solution to the problem 
of negro emancipation, in securing the desirable 
separation of the white and coloured races, in tend- 
ing to allay the most fearful of all the excitements 
which have threatened our national existence, in 
conferring incalculable blessings upon the emigrants, 
by delivering them from hopeless thraldom here, and 
by establishing them in the land of their fathers, 
midst plenty, freedom, knowledge, and religion, and 
midst openings tempting them to the noblest endea- 
vour; its advantages in developing for the benefit of 
the world, and especially of our own country, the 
unimagined riches of Africa — advantages, which it 
is astonishing our Government has not hastened to 
secure, as she might so easily have done — these, and 
other kindred views of the subject, so suggestive and 
enticing, must be passed over almost in silence, as 
somewhat inappropriate to this day and place, and as 
by far too copious for our time. But this is less to 
be regretted as our periodicals and newspapers are 



Oy A V RICA'S REDE M 1' T 1 O N. 

industriously scattering light upon this subject, and 
that too from sources where, awhile ago, the cause 
experienced opposition and misrepresentation. 

Viewing this project of African colonization in all 
its antecedents, connections, and consequences, we 
cannot place it second to any other of human devi- 
sing. Consider the perplexing problem which it so 
beautifully solves, consider the gigantic and varied 
features of the scheme itself, the probable magnitude 
of its many most desirable results, and the glory and 
blessing attendant on every step in its onward pro- 
gress, and where can be found an unfolding of Pro- 
vidence so stupendous and beneficent! Must there 
not be a remarkable impressiveness in the scheme, 
to have rallied to its support such friends as it has 
at home and abroad. I know of no benevolent 
scheme which has ever enlisted in its behalf so 
large and dignified an array of piety, talent, wealth, 
cultivation and high position as this. All the en- 
lightened religious bodies of the country, the most 
of our State Legislatures, in all sections, and of all 
parties, (except the Abolitionist) Presidents of the 
United States, (I believe all of them since the foun- 
dation of the Society) our leading philanthropists, 
our most distinguished statesmen and divines, the 
great majority of our newspapers and reviews, lite- 
rary, commercial, political, and religious, have sanc- 
tioned and sustained this cause in all proper modes, 
and on all proper occasions. Men of all creeds in 
politics and religion, men in all localities and all 
interests, see in this many-sided scheme, something 



AFRICA'S REDEMPTION, £9 

which commends it to their judgment, their hearts, 
and their purses. Indeed it might have been enough 
to say that in the rehgious world, it had Archibald 
Alexander for its historian, and in the political 
world, Henry Clay for its devoted head for many 
long years. Both may be placed among its founders, 
as they were its fast and eflBicient friends through 
their long lives. It has been but a brief space since 
Alexander was called away, full of years, labours 
and honours, and left a name not soon to fade from 
the annals of the great and good. And now Clay 
too has gone. Yes, by that sad event, which has 
touched the deepest fountains of national feeling, an 
event which will aw^ake the sympathies of the civil- 
ized world, and I may say, which was so nobly and 
feelingly honoured by the people of Philadelphia, not 
only did the world lose a great political teacher, the 
nation an unrivalled statesman and orator, the realms 
of genius a peerless star, the ranks of social life a 
man of outgushing feeling, and amazing powers of 
fascination, but this great cause of colonization lost 
its oldest, firmest, most devoted, and influential 
friend, who has by his death left vacant the presi- 
dential chair of the Society. It were diflacult to say 
which State has more loved and cherished coloniza- 
tion, Virginia or Kentucky — but they are mother 
and daughter; the one gave Henry Clay a cradle, 
and the other a tomb. The Virginians w^ho laboured 
with him in the early period of this cause — such as 
Madison, Marshall, Monroe, Thornton, Randolph, 
and Alexander — have mostly gone before him to the 



30 AFRICA'S REDEMPTION. 

grave. Charles Fenton Mercer, like Clay, a Virgi- 
nian by birth, and a Kentuckian by adoption, still 
lives in a green and vigorous old age, and deserves 
immortal honour as being among the first (possibly 
the very first) to suggest, propagate, and devote him- 
self to this scheme of wisdom and benevolence ; 
but soon the projectors of this mighty enterprise 
will all be numbered with the dead. 

Thus pass away the mighty and the excellent, 
but their names and labours remain, and under 
God's providence every good cause moves on to its 
destiny. Few as are the remaining spirits who 
conceived and first embodied the idea of African 
colonization, the cause itself continues, not only in 
all its pristine freshness, but gathering strength 
with each revolving year, realizing already many 
of its splendid designs, shining like the dawn of 
a glorious day on the edge of a vast and benighted 
continent, bidding fair to indemnify that wretched 
race of more than one hundred and fifty millions 
of people, for all the wrongs and untold miseries 
which it has suffered at the hands of its more 
enlightened brethren. A stupid and malevolent 
prejudice may sneer as it may at the apparent insig- 
nificance of the results thus far attained, but there 
stands Liberia, a free, sovereign, self-sustaining 
Republic, acknowledged as such by the first powers 
of Europe (although not by our Government, as 
it ought to be); there she stands full of hope, full 
of courage, and full of promise. Already has she 
looked serenely on the rise and fall of the bluster- 



AFRICA'S REDEMPTION. oi 

ing French Republic, eviiicino a rationality and 
capacity for self-government far surpassing the 
French people, and having a President L all 
respects superior to the coxcomb who rules the 
French nation. There she stands in her princi- 
ples, in her spirit, in the moral elevation of her 
people, in the terms and tone of her declaration 
of independence, and I confidently add, in her pros- 
pects, a government more like our own than that 
of any other nation under heaven! Hence comes 
the special propriety of presenting this subject on 
the anniversary of our National Independence. 
Let this day be a trysting-point, where annually 
these solitary Republics shall blend their thoughts, 
and rejoice in their related happiness. In so doing 
we do not banish, but the more naturally recall, the 
memory of our noble history, and the more vividly 
realize our national blessincrs. 

On the recurrence of this fourth day of July, 
the people of these United States, and least of all, 
those who dwell in sight of Independence Hall, 
cannot forget our glorious past, or fail to be grate- 
ful for our present position and prospects. May 
it ever be a day of unmingled rejoicing, and of 
devout gratitude to Almighty God, the arbiter of 
national as well as individual destiny. It has this 
year fallen upon the Sabbath, and the pulpit is thus 
providentially allowed the opportunity to add its tes- 
timony in honour of the day. Let it never be 
passed in silence — let the rushing car of mammon 
never reduce it to the level of other days. It is the 



32 A F R I C A ' S R E D K M P TI O N. 

Nation's Jubilee, let every heart rejoice, and every 
tongue sing aloud with joy. It is the Nation's 
Sabbath, let the labourer rest, and the patriot refresh 
his soul : let the Nation's universal, undivided heart 
pour out its praises to the Almighty Father, and 
supplicate his continued favours. It is not a day for 
childish glee, still less for wild extravagance : it is a 
day for solemn thoughts and sacred communings, 
and soul-stirring memories, and earnest, unceasing, 
supplications. But it is not a day for isolating our- 
selves from all thoughts of brother man. To appre- 
ciate our own condition, we must contrast it with 
that of others : and we are not worthy of our privi- 
leges if we do not sympathize with the down-trodden 
and with the uprising. Certainly of all others, this 
is not a day to repudiate the bond between us and 
Africa. The destinies of America and Africa are 
undoubtedly and indissolubly united. Four mil- 
lions of Africa's sable sons are now chained to the 
car of American liberty, and as we are borne along 
our splendid course, we dare not forget our dusky 
brethren, whose worn and weary bodies are dragged 
along the track, and whose beseeching eyes are 
turned to us for deliverance. The Providence 
which bound them to us, is no longer mysterious. 
Africa's race was to be apprenticed out to learn 
liberty and religion: America was the best master 
and the best teacher to be found on the earth : the 
apprenticeship will cease at the appointed time; 
the lesson will then have been taught and learned ; 
and thus British rapacity will be overruled by 



AFRICA'S REDKMPTION. 



American generosity and Christianity, and Africa 
redeemed. 

People of the North, your piety and patriotism, 
your interest and good sense, combine to rally you, or 
the most of you, around all harmonizing measures, 
needed to tighten the bonds of our confederation ; 
and you try hard to persuade yourselves that slavery 
is not such a bad thing after all. But in your inner 
heart you hate the institution of slavery, and you 
would not deserve to have such a day as this in your 
annals if you did not hate it. But it becomes you, 
in dealing with this subject, to seek the broadest and 
most comprehensive views, and above all, to be 
guided by an intelligent Christian love. There are 
ways of shaking a tree which only makes it drive 
its roots deeper into the earth. I feel confident in 
declaring that in principle and policy, the coloniza- 
tion movement furnishes a safe, and the only safe, 
guide. Attempting to act upon slavery in any other 
spirit, and on any other principles, is unwise, useless, 
and Utopian, aye, it is rni?ious. The old fable here 
is just in place. The wind and sun vied with each 
other to strip the cloak from the traveller. The wind 
raged and stormed, but the traveller the more reso- 
lutely wrapped his cloak around him. As soon as 
the wind ceased its blowing, the sun came out with 
its smilinof face and orentle beams, and the traveller 
laid off his cloak for his own comfort and convenience. 
Abolitionism is the wind ; Colonization is the sun. 

Abolitionism has never caused the honest emanci- 
pation of a single slave, has in no single particular 
5 



34 A F R I C A ' S R E D E M P Tl N. 

bettered the condition of the slave, nor has it really 
elevated any portion of the negro race ; it has sent 
no missionary, no Bible, no cup of cold water even, 
to the poor wretches over whom they shed their 
crocodile tears; but on the contrary, this satanic 
faction has exasperated many a benevolent master, 
who was inclined to emancipate his slaves, and thus 
secured their perpetual bondage; it has taken the 
Bible and all other books out of the hands of the 
slave, by causing laws to be passed, in self-defence, 
which forbids him to learn to read ; has forced 
the master to tighten the rein and watch his ser- 
vant with a cold and jealous eye; has curtailed his 
legal liberty in all respects, and at the same time, 
has made the poor bondsman restless and wretched 
from the vague hope of emancipation; has caused 
countless murders and many insurrections, in which 
the negro always was the greater sufferer without 
gaining the slightest advantage ; has led to many 
attempts at escape which ended in the negro's pun- 
ishment and worse enslavement; has kept many in- 
nocent hearts in the most distressing state of alarm. 
It has curtailed, indeed, almost annihilated free dis- 
cussion of the subject in the South ; it has rallied 
thousands to the support of slavery, who else would 
have been labouring for its extermination ; indeed, it 
is clearly responsible for the present existence of sla- 
very in Maryland, Kentucky, and Virginia : it has 
inspired the free black population with hopes never 
to be realized, (as Mr. Birney himself is now forced 
to admit) and made them more despised by the 



A F R I C A ' S R E D E M P T I N. 35 

sober part of the community, in proportion as they 
have chafed against the bars of their deepening 
degradation. 

Such are some of the crimes of abolitionism; 
but these are not all, nor the worst. It is respon- 
sible for all the turmoil and trepidation attend- 
ing the passage and the several enforcements of 
the Fugitive Slave Law. What do I say? Aboli- 
tionism is responsible for the Fugitive Slave Law 
itself. The law sprang out of the monster's own 
loins, and now it gnashes its teeth upon its own pro- 
geny. It was abolitionism that forced the law into 
existence : if the former had not existed, the latter 
would not have been needed. There would have 
been few fugitives to catch, and still fewer owners 
who would have cared to take the trouble to catch 
them, had they been let alone. And more than 
this, abolitionism with all its prating about Ameri- 
can liberty, is the greatest foe American liberty has 
to contend against. It is not only a one-idea party, 
but it is a party demented about an abstraction, with- 
out the slightest reference to the modifications which 
every principle undergoes in practical, and especial- 
ly in complicated, application. And consequently 
its spirit is the most turbulent, explosive, disorgan- 
izing, and hence reactionary, of all others. Even 
Abolitionists are compelled to admit that abstractions 
are often wholly reversed in practice. You may hear 
one of them arguing that free trade, as an abstract 
doctrine, is the true law of international exchanges, 
whilst the circumstances of a particular nation may 



gU AFRICA'S REDEMPTION. 

totally reverse the doctrine and make the tariff a pro- 
priety. You may hear another arguing that whilst 
" thou shalt not kill" is the true law in morals and 
religion, yet killing may become a propriety, an im- 
perative duty, in certain circumstances. And so of 
innumerable other principles, and less or more of 
all principles, certainly of all belonging to terrestrial 
relations. And yet these men seize hold of the ab- 
straction that " all men being free and equal, and 
having certain inalienable rights, the holding of a 
man in bondage is a sin and a shame," and try 
to run it like a red-hot ploughshare through soci- 
ety, in utter defiance of all attending and modifying 
circumstances; and they would rip up, run over, and 
plough under, the very foundations of every struc- 
ture, sacred, civil, and social, as savagely and re- 
morselessly as a madman gashes the bodies of the 
members of his own family. Such a spirit, if 
allowed to become dominant, would transform this 
earth into a slaughter-house, and drive the race of 
man to such a pitch of infatuated wretchedness as 
never has been reached in the most disastrous times. 
From the character of its results, so far as felt, you 
easily perceive its virulent and dissolving tendency. 
Behold the sectional animosities it has called into 
being, and the fierce, unbrotherly feelings, words, 
and acts, of which it has been the author. Its hot 
temper scalds whatever it touches. Look into its 
newspapers, and you find such a satanic rage as is 
evinced in no other quarter, except the fountain- 
head; enter its meetings, and see the ravings and 



AFRICA'S REDEMPTION. 3Y 

frothings of its orators; see its clerical advocates 
sparkling with fire — ministers of the meek and gen- 
tle Jesus, ''breathing out threateninofs and slauoh- 
ter" against their fellow-men, multitudes of them 
their fellow^ Christians. See its demoniacal workino-s 

o 

in our national councils, the bad passions which it 
stirs up, the disgraceful scenes which it occasions, 
and the chasm of destruction to the verge of which 
it has so often dragged the nation. 

And still the catalogue of its crimes is not ended. 
It is the source and front, the active vanguard of in- 
fidelity. It runs its fiery abstraction into the leaves 
of the Bible with as daring a recklessness as into the 
frame-work of society. If on the rack, the Bible 
testify not to their one idea, it must be burnt like a 
witch — it is evil-possessed. Almost any thorough 
abolitionist will say, " If the Bible sanctions slavery, 
down with the Bible." His human reason under- 
takes to judge God, contradict him, defy him, and 
dethrone him. That is abolitionism, and nothino- 
less or more ! Many good Christian men act with 
the party without seeing what others see, that pure 
abolitionism is but a fierce and arrogant form of 
rationalistic infidelity, and that really it is now doing 
more to spread abroad and infuse into the popular 
mind at the North, a Christ-hating, God-defying 
tone and temper, than any other evil influence that 
is at work in the land. In a word, here are the 
results at which the leaders of this party manifestly 
point. The slave being essentially his own man, he 
may and should not only lay every sort of tax 



38 A F R I C A ' S R E D E M P T I O N. 

upon his master's property as indemnity, but also 
demand, and if necessary, coerce his freedom. The 
plain meaning of this principle is, that there should 
be a general insurrection among the slaves in the 
South, in which they should murder all men, wo- 
men, and children, who do not at once sanction their 
claims. Secondly, that form of society in which sla- 
very can reside in peace, must be radically wrong. 
Therefore the structure must be torn down, as an 
old-fashioned, rickety building is torn down in a 
fashionable street, and an entire reconstruction of 
the edifice be made on free and socialistic principles. 
Thirdly, the political confederation which can recog- 
nize and tolerate slavery as a legal institution, must 
be a rotten, disgraceful concern. Hence this Ameri- 
can Union must be exploded. And fourthly, the 
religion which can even be suspected of sanctioning 
the monstrous iniquity must be devilish, and not 
divine. Therefore, the Bible is either uninspired, 
and a mass of mingled truth and error, or it is 
one gigantic scheme of imposition : or, at the least, 
Christianity as commonly held is a lie, and an 
' incubus, and the sooner it is thrown off the bet- 
ter, and men be left to the glories of a natural 
religion, developed from the ultimate principle 
of Abolition liberty — which means, abolish God, 
abolish Christ, abolish the Church, abolish the 
ministry, abolish the government, abolish society, 
abolish the family, abolish penalties, abolish com- 
promise, abolish decency; and revel in all the de- 
lights of their opposites, especially of anarchy and 



AFRICA'S REDEMPTION. gg 

licentiousness, deification of man and defiance of 
God. And now, amidst all the smoke and carnage 
of a triumphant abolitionism, what good will accrue 
to the poor negro, either in America or in Africa. 
For his condition of present degradation, they pro- 
mise him only a fate growing for ever darker, and 
deeper, and more appallmg. Such is abolitionism 
displayed, according to my understanding of its 
principle, is spirit, and its tendency. 

And now for a moment refresh yourselves by 
contrasting with this anti-slavery madness, the calm, 
dignified, wise, efficient and beneficent proceedings, 
achievements and tendencies of African colonization.' 
Its simple, fundamental aim, is the transfer of free 
coloured people to the coast of Africa, and to that 
aim it consistently and undeviatingly adheres. But 
jet, as was expected and desired, its influence is 
great and growing in many directions ; and its actual 
eff"ects thus far have been happy beyond all reason- 
able expectation. It has been the direct cause of 
delivering from bondage many thousands of slaves, 
(about one half of the whole number sent to Liberia, 
have been emancipated slaves); it has provided what < 
Mr. Jefferson and other statesmen anxiously sought, 
a kind, safe and feasible mode of disposing of that 
large class of slaves, who are held in bondage only 
for the want of some such provision ; it is causino- 
thousands of masters to begin a quiet and gradual 
preparation for ultimately liberating their slaves, and 
thus helping to raise the intellectual and moral con- 



40 AFRICA'S REDEMPTION. 

dition of the entire slave population ; it has gently, 
though efficiently, promoted the general spirit of 
emancipation in the South : it alone makes emanci- 
pation a blessing to either race : it is now a star of hope 
to all true and rational lovers of negro freedom : it has 
soothed sectional animosities: it has united the body 
of the great and good in all sections of the Union, and 
has powerfully tended to neutralize and overcome the 
disor^anizinsf tendencies of abolitionism. More and 
better than all, it has allied itself in the closest har- 
mony with Christianity in its present and most catho- 
lic form, or rather, I should say, it is permeated tho- 
roughly with the pure essence of our divine religion. 
Politicians, preachers, and the people generally, for- 
get their sectional and sectarian feelinfrs and interests 
under the benign influences of colonization. Christi- 
anity rules, directs, and accompanies this movement 
in all its parts. It were enough to say that it has, 
within twenty-five years, reared a Christian Republic 
on a distant coast, in the midst of heathen darkness. 
Already has it accomplished good, and only good : it 
has accomplished all that it set out to accomplish 
thus far. Its future is bright; it is radiant with the 
most glorious promise. How far it is to go in the 
actual lifting off of the chains of the enslaved, cannot 
now be affirmed, but certainly all the indications 
tend only to it as the high-way for the exode of the 
liberated captives. 

If you will allow me to try your patience yet far- 
ther, I shall indulge in a few general thoughts on the 



AFRICA'S REDEMPTION. 41 



iriterworking of these antagonistic principles in our 
nation, especially as it affects the condition and pros- 
pects of the negro race. 

The God whose province it is to bring good out of 
evil, and whose administrative policy seems, in many 
of its aspects, to be a system of checks and balances, 
has made even abolitionism an incidental advantage, 
in some respects, to both colonization and emancipa- 
tion, just in the way which those under the influence 
of the mania least expected. Had there been no abo- 
lition furor against the scheme of African colonization, 
it would doubtless have soon become popular with 
the free blacks who are much influenced by their 
cruel friends, and then the infant colony would have 
been overrun with emigrants, and been thrown into 
confusion by the unwieldy, incoherent mass put 
upon it. The colony has increased nearly as fast as 
was consistent with solidity and permanency. The 
hard and lasting woods are those which grow slowly. 
The same cause prevented the slaveholders from 
liberating as fast as they would otherwise have done, 
which has been no disadvantage. It has had, too, 
a winnowing action upon emigration, tending to ' 
check the weak and ignorant, and unenterprising, 
and to send only those of a superior order, who were 
not to be daunted by passionate abuse and misrepre- 
sentation, nor by the inconveniences of the new 
country. And it may be that God allowed the abo- 
lition party to rise up as a check to the general 
work of slave emancipation, to keep the slave where 
he was taken care of, until his home was ready for 
6 



42 A F R I C A ' S R E D E M P T I O N. 

him to ^o into; but for this party, the fetters of the 
slave would have been flying in fragments in all di- 
rections. The South, if let alone, would spew out 
slavery in less than a generation. No one but a 
Southerner knows, or can know, how general is the 
antipathy of the Southern people to the institution. 
They know w^ell that they are the chief sufferers in 
the matter ; and they would gladly deliver them- 
selves. But it is not human nature, certainly not 
American nature, to be lashed into anything. You 
may want to bestow a charity on the suffering, but 
your feelings would be very much changed, did a 
man undertake to whip you into the measure. Hence 
this meddlesome party may have been raised up like 
Pharaoh, just to keep these people in bondage for 
their ultimate good. Their country is not ready for 
them all, and they are not all ready for freedom. 
Meanwhile, colonization is shedding upon them an 
influence which must gradually elevate their condi- 
tion whilst they remain in bondage, and thus prepare 
them for the day of deliverance. Its influence is 
exerted silently, and almost imperceptibly, and in 
the most persuasive and salutary manner; and grad- 
ually the colonization principles will triumph over 
the abolition, by making more friends, and by ulti- 
mately converting, purifying, and absorbing the 
abolition party itself. 

Messrs. Greely and Birney are only the first 
fruits of the triumphs of colonization in winning its 
enemies. They will, and must resort to African 
emigration as the only hope for negro elevation. 



AFRICA'S REDEMPTION. 43 

Meanwhile, colonization is silently lifting the entire 
coloured population in America. This it does by- 
first calling a general and kindly attention to the con- 
dition of this population — whence grows an honest 
and inquisitive interest in their w^elfare. The public 
feelings, instead of being exasperated, are softened 
and tenderly enlisted by the way in which coloniza- 
tion presents the case of the negro. Then, along 
with the perception of the avoidable evils in the con- 
dition of this race among us, goes corresponding 
efforts for his relief and improvement. To this, no 
doubt, is to be attributed in considerable measure, the 
increasing interest which is felt in giving religious 
instruction to coloured people, and in some places in 
free States, in regularly educating them. And the 
reflex influence of the Liberian Republic is already 
pov^'erfuUy felt for the good of the race here. Colo- 
nization has taken the negro from under his disabili- 
ties here, and placed him where he has developed 
to an intellectual and moral stature never reached 
before by his race, and now holds him up as the 
optical demonstration of what the negro may easily 
become. Whole nebulae of phrenological specula- 
tions and scientific infidelities have thus been dissi- 
pated ; and there, star-like, shines out the negro 
intellect, clear and bright. There, intelligence, free- 
dom, and religion, flourish amongst the descendants 
of Ham — amidst the much maligned Ethiopian race. 
This exhibition must greatly aff'ect the minds of phi- 
lanthropists and slaveholders. "What right have 
we (will they argue) to allow these people to exist 



44 A F R I C A • S 11 K D E M P T I O N. 

amono^ us in such io^norance and deorradation, when 
they have in them the germ of so fine a development. 
We must improve them, even if they are to stay 
among us — we dare not leave them as they are." 
Even at the North, the neglected negro will have 
efforts made in his behalf. The Liberians have 
schools, academies, and ere long will have colleges : 
why should we not provide schools, academies, and 
colleges for our coloured people at home : why 
should we not have theological seminaries, normal 
schools, agricultural schools, for them, where the 
great leaders of the coloured race would be trained 
and sent forth! Such must be the reflex influence of 
Liberia upon America. North and South, the con- 
dition of the blacks will gradually improve, and as it 
improves so will they grow in fitness for freedom, 
and as they become intelligent and aspiring, will the 
free blacks of the north become dissatisfied with their 
disfranchised condition here, and be attracted to the 
coloured Republic beyond the ocean, w^here they may 
have scope for their utmost powers. And thus edu- 
cation, love of gold, (as before alluded to,) oppression, 
emancipation. Christian zeal, and even abolitionism, 
will conspire to empty our land of these aliens, and 
to lift Liberia to a noble elevation in the scale of 
nations. 

There appears to my mind a tender and remarka- 
ble coincidence between the bondage of Africans in 
America, and the ancient bondage of the Jews in 
Egypt. Your own minds can easily trace the most 
obvious features of the comparison. The analogy, 



AFRICA'S REDEMPTION. 4,5 

however, consists in more than the mere carrying 
away, the enslavement, and the rendition; it is des- 
tined to be carried out in the greatness of the work 
achieved by both aUke in the world's progress. You 
at first may be incredulous, and so would an Egyp- 
tian have been incredulous, had one pointed to the 
degraded people they owned, and said that they 
were the most important people on earth. Imagine 
yourselves standing by an Egyptian brick-yard, 
seventeen hundred years before Christ, and looking 
upon the despised and oppressed Hebrews working 
in the mortar-beds, gathering straw, cutting and 
drying brick, with cruel task-masters standing over 
them, and ordering them hither and thither in the 
most supercilious tones. It would be hard for you 
to believe that that race were destined to return and 
possess the rich lands of their fathers, to build splen- 
did cities, to have powerful armies, to have enlight- 
ened kings and prophets of God, and at last to give 
to the world a Saviour. But all this and far more 
came to pass. We do not expect another Messiah. 
But we have every reason to believe that the Afri- 
cans will have their Moses and their Joshua, their 
David and their Isaiah, who, if not inspired, will 
yet be their God-sent teachers and deliverers. And 
there is scarcely a people living who promise to 
play so interesting and important a part in the 
world for the next century or two as these negroes, 
free and enslaved, whom we have in our country. 
If they are to return to their land and to regenerate 
their race, with what a profound interest should we 



4g A F R I C A ' S R E D K M P T I N. 

regard this commonly despised population; and how 
vigorously should we address ourselves to the work 
of teachino- them who are to teach a vast and teem- 
insr continent. There is no time to be lost. The 
work moves on to its consummation. Individuals 
and leorislatures are offering laro-e means to send 
those who are willing to go. And it is hoped that 
ere lono" our general orovernment, with its ocean 
steamers, its overflowing treasury, and its sense of 
obligation to Africa, will lay hold of this work and 
push it forward with all of its mighty energies. 
And I am not destitute of hope that England and 
Germany will yet remember, with suitable com- 
punctions, W'hence came American slavery, who it 
was that brouo-ht this African race from their land 
to this; and that these memories will assist their 
general philanthropy and Christian zeal, and cause 
them to render us their powerful aid in this w^ork. 
Indeed a great eleemosynary scheme like this, aff'ect- 
ing so large a portion of the world's inhabitants, has 
all the proper elements of a world's charity. Already 
has this cause found favour and received substantial 
aid in England, from both individuals and the gov- 
ernment. France, England, and Prussia have all 
acknowledged Liberia as belonging to the family 
of nations. And why may we not entertain the 
hope, that, in time, all the Christian nations of the 
world will be assisting in some department of Afri- 
can regeneration, by means of colonization from 
America. 

We at this moment have every indication of an 



AFRICA'S REDEMPTION. 4| 

increasing interest on the subject among the col- 
oured people of our country, and an increasing dis- 
position to emigrate. Indications of this are seen in 
every part of the land, north, south, east, and west. 
Neighbourhoods here and there are holding conven- 
tions, and sending delegations to Liberia, to report 
on the state of things there — and such delegations, 
I believe, have always reported favourably. 

But to recur, in conclusion, to the practical view 
of the subject. Not only is money needed for trans- 
ferring the emigrants from America to Africa, and 
for sustaining educational and missionary efforts in 
and about the republic of Liberia, but the most im- 
mediate and vigorous efforts are needed to prepare 
the population here for the destiny that awaits them. 
Let not the work of emigration proceed faster than 
the work of home preparation, which is necessary 
to make emigration a blessing to Africa. Look 
around us and behold the sad and neglected condi- 
tion of the mass of our coloured population. How 
can we expect or desire such people to be the teach- 
ers of Africa, to be the representatives of American 
republicanism and American Christianity. In many 
individual cases, may you find among us coloured 
men of intelligence and high moral character, but 
it is not so with the masses of them, and the reason 
is, that they have been a despised and shamefully 
neglected people. 

Brethren, a thousand weighty motives call upon us 
to turn our kindly attention upon the African race. 
Let us not be guided by a fanatical zeal, but by a 



^g AFRICA'S REDEMPTION. 

Christian philanthropy, which is wise, mild, and in- 
domitable. The negro is our brother and our ward : 
and God will hold us responsible for his training 
and for his end, temporal and eternal. He may, by 
suitable effort, become a blessing and an ornament 
to the earth, and by God's mercy, an heir of eternal 
glory. And, 0, in the great and solemn day of the 
Lord, when we behold millions of Africa's redeemed 
children with crowns on their heads and palms in 
their hands, falling into the line of God's sacra- 
mental host, how will our hearts swell with joy to 
think that we w^ere permitted to bear even the 
humblest part in sending Christ's religion to their 
shores, and scattering the darkness from their 
minds. 



THE END. 



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